Subarctic climate for the earliest Homo sapiens in Europe

Pederzani, S., Britton, K., Aldeias, V., Bourgon, N., Fewlass, H., Lauer, T., McPherron, S. P., Rezek, Z., Sirakov, N., Smith, G. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7155-5140, Spasov, R., -Han Tran, N., Tsanova, T. and Hublin, J.-J. (2021) Subarctic climate for the earliest Homo sapiens in Europe. Science Advances, 7 (39). eabi4642. ISSN 2375-2548 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abi4642

Abstract/Summary

The expansion of Homo sapiens across Eurasia marked a major milestone in human evolution that would eventually lead to our species being found across every continent. Current models propose that these expansions occurred only during episodes of warm climate, based on age correlations between archaeological and climatic records. Here, we obtain direct evidence for the temperatures faced by some of these humans through the oxygen isotope analysis of faunal remains from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria, the earliest clear record of H. sapiens in Europe. The results indicate that humans ∼45,000 years ago experienced subarctic climates with far colder climatic conditions than previously suggested. This demonstrates that the early presence of H. sapiens in Europe was not contingent on warm climates. Our results necessitate the revision of key models of human expansion and highlight the need for a less deterministic role of climate in the study of our evolutionary history.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/122599
Identification Number/DOI	10.1126/sciadv.abi4642
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Scientific Archaeology Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item